Wednesday, November 23, 2016

I've been nagged lately by an old idea: bringing a little more Chainmail into my D&D. As any of you who have survived my hiatuses (hiati?) know, this has been my Eleanor. I place the blame for its resurgence squarely with the esteemable Mr Simon Bull, of Delving Deeper fame. In the v5 beta of Book I, he has added "Fighting Capability" to the classes. Yet, the rules for using it won't be available until the Book II beta release.

In any event, I've been thinking about it again, and I wanted to "journal" my thoughts, as much for myself as anything else. As always, though, comment and discourse are welcome.

Use the basic 2d6 "to-hit" table from the Man-to-Man section of Chainmail. It is based solely on weapon v. armor. This is to be used with opponents (whether they be PCs or NPCs) of less than Heroic stature.

PCs will attack on this table according to their Fighting Capability (FC). Thus, a third level fighting-man would attack three times. Note that these are not to be spread among multiple foes. This does not represent individual swings of a weapon. Rather it represents the greater likelihood that a more capable combatant will force a decisive outcome. Thus, even though it might be more than one roll, it still represents a single attack.

Certain bonuses will accrue to the "to-hit" roll itself. In this case, the bonus will apply to only one such roll.

Magic weapons are an exception to this. Bonuses from magic weapons modify, for purposes of "to-hit" rolls ONLY, the wielder's hit dice, thus, by extension, the wielders FC. Damage bonuses,where they are indicated v. specific targets, are applied to all successful "to-hit" rolls.

Magic shields reduce an attacker's hit dice similarly, in turn reducing FC (this effectively results in magic shields "blocking" attacks). Magic armor adds its bonus to an attacker's "to-hit" roll. Note that this may make the wearer unassailable without the availability of "to-hit" bonuses. Hero/Superhero/Wizard FC will attack such magically armored foes in Heroic Combat.

Characters with FCs of Hero, Superhero, or Wizard are all capable of Heroic Combat. Any creature above 3 HD is beyond the capacities of a normal man (being 3 HD or less). Such foes are not attacked using the Weapon v. Armor matrix. The target number to hit these foes will be from the Fantasy Combat Table in Chainmail.

Ok, so those are my initial thoughts. Like I said, this is mainly me journaling where I am in this thought process at this time. Who knows where it will go from here.